FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT PUBLIC THEATER - PAGE 3

In the words of John Patrick Shanley, "No hero enjoys living in the mud, waiting for his strength to return while the battle goes against his own." What does this mean in relation to his new play? Shanley, whose last stage work was "Italian-American Reconciliation" and who won an Academy Award for his screenplay for the film "Moonstruck," said his new drama defies easy synopsis but "the heroic spirit which inhabits us all is going through such a moment and I call this moment `the big funk.

When is an opening not an opening? When it involves David Hare's "Secret Rapture," which begins performances Sept. 8 at the Public Theater with Hare directing and Blair Brown, Frances Conroy and Mary Beth Hurt in the main roles. Joseph Papp, you see, has decided to give the show a six-week run at the Public without a press opening and then move the show directly to Broadway, to the Barrymore Theater, and have the press opening there. He's doing it this way, Papp says, because of the general newspaper policy that once a show is reviewed off Broadway it will not be reviewed again if the same production moves to Broadway that season.

By Richard B. Woodward, New York Times News Service | September 14, 1989

At about 6 feet 4, walking with a loose, shambling gait, his face dimpled and wrinkle-free, Tim Robbins looks like the overgrown kid he portrayed in the 1988 movie "Bull Durham"-the baby-faced pitcher with unknown potential. In a lower Manhattan restaurant he is dressed in sweat pants and T-shirt as though he had just come from the gym. A pair of spectacles adds another touch: the bookish jock. But his speech, soft and earnest, and his determination to talk about theater, and not Hollywood business, dispels his popular image as a large, charming goofball.

There undoubtedly will be mayoral performances all over New York next year, especially because it's an election year, but onstage it will be Fiorello La Guardia instead of Edward Koch. "Hizzoner!," written by Paul Shyre and starring Tony Lo Bianco as the Little Flower, is to open at the Longacre Theater on Feb. 23. The drama centers on the colorful mayor who served three terms (1934-1945), ordered the arrest of gangster Lucky Luciano one minute after being sworn in, and had a weekly radio program reading the comics to children.

What do playwrights need to survive? Commissions of $25,000, the banishment of all critics from the face of the Earth and someone who will at least read their plays, with perhaps a good health plan to boot. What can JoAnne Akalaitis, artistic director of the Public Theater, do about it? Maybe nothing. The opinion on the recent "town meeting" for playwrights, attended by 273 people and organized by Akalaitis, was split, judging from a sampling of 10 who were there. Those who liked the meeting, held at the Public, commend Akalaitis` effort to reach out to them as a community.

As it one play with three acts, or three one-act plays? Even Christopher Durang can`t say for sure, and if he can`t, who can? He wrote "Laughing Wild" or, to be more accurate, he's still writing it-or them. And he's not only the playwright; he`ll be one of the two cast members, too. As for describing his newest work, Durang said that it was neither light nor serious, that perhaps the best phrase would be "an intense comedy." The first two sections, he said, are monologues, one female, one male, and in the final section the two characters meet in a somewhat surreal atmosphere and . . . E. Katherine Kerr of "Cloud 9" will play the woman, who is characterized by Durang as someone "on the brink of becoming a bag person, in a state of rage at how difficult it is to be alive."

Enter, in black jogging suit, Steven Berkoff, 51, British playwright, actor and director of "Coriolanus," William Shakespeare's latest hit. The color of the suit echoes the color scheme of his provocative, idiosyncratic, stylized and critically praised production, which stars Christopher Walken, Irene Worth, Moses Gunn, Keith David and Paul Hecht and which is at the Public Theater as the sixth play in the New York Shakespeare Festival's Shakespeare...

After the success of "Cafe Crown," the 1940s tribute to the glory days of Yiddish theater, Joseph Papp has decided to bring the Yiddish theater of today to the New York Shakespeare Festival. The play in question is "Songs of Paradise," described as the first Yiddish pop musical, and it will begin performances Jan. 17 at the Public Theater for a three-week run. Performed in Yiddish and English, "Songs of Paradise" is a fantasy retelling of the Book of Genesis, and it features rap, blues, disco and gospel.

Commercial producers aren't just commercial anymore. At least not all of them -- not since the divide between the commercial theater industry and the not-for-profit legit sector has crumbled under the weight of ongoing shifts in the cultural, artistic and economic landscape. Just as the two intertwining worlds have become increasingly integral to each other's activities over the years, individual producers have begun to mix and match from both models, crossing over from one sector to another, and even maintaining a foot in both worlds.

In the case of Barnes v. Glen Theatre Inc., the issue at hand was whether the state of Indiana's demand that the dancers at the Glen Theatre and the Kitty Kat Lounge in South Bend, Ind., wear both pasties and G-strings as they did their thing was a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression. The dancers said, in essence, that their desired nudity was a crucial aspect of their performance and thus was protected speech. Indiana said, in essence, that its prohibition of public nudity was a reasonable law and that if it made an exception for the artists of the Kitty Kat Lounge, it would logically have to do so for anyone who chose to sashay nude down, say, the streets of Munster.